Indonesia

there was an office, which could be reached through an outside door from the court yard. As the house was also connected to the town water supply, Filus had gone back to Tarus. But our whole family got very attached to him, and so we encouraged him to come back at weekends. He stayed in the office then.

Through him, other students came and stayed the night. There was plenty of room, and we enjoyed their visits. Lazarus (Zarus for short) Toulasik was a keen and very competent guitar player. He offered to teach me play. Unfortunately, though, my fingers were too clumsy and I never managed to string even the most simple chords. But I bought a guitar with Zarus' help, and whenever he came to visit us, he would entertain us and teach us lots of Indonesian songs.

Before driving to Tarus for my lectures, I had to buy three kilos of meat and two kilos of bones from the market, and for the rest of the week I bought mung beans or kidney beans, another source of protein for the students.

With my agricultural background, and seeing all the paddy fields, the old farmer came out in me. I saw great potential for more intensive farming and had talks about it with Chris and Itje Frans, the rector of the agricultural school in Tarus, which also belonged to GMIT. At that time our mission board sent a letter to GMIT in which they mentioned that they might not be able to indefinitely fund the theological school at Tarus. I asked both rectors whether the land which belonged to the church could produce enough rice to make the school eventually independent from our subsidy. I was told that the school planted rice there each year during the wet season, but the fence was in such bad repair, that the animals from the village destroyed most of the crop, as they were allowed to roam around freely. Also, the paddies needed some fertilizer, which the school couldn't afford to buy. Itje suggested the Presbyterian church might prefer to pay a lump sum to develop the land and perhaps buy a small tractor for ploughing. With that the school would become independent of further subsidies. Itja was a good planner and he and Chris seemed to agree with that scheme. I mentioned it to the Moderator, who also agreed with it and asked me to draft a letter to our church in Australia. This project was called the Self Help Scheme, and it took rather a long time to come to fruition.

To begin with I encouraged the students to plant rice on the four hectares of the school paddy fields. This was much more complicated than I first thought. Although it had rained enough, the soil was rather firm and it was hard work to hoe it. It took almost three weeks of back-breaking work to finish. There were no lectures given during that time.

I spent a lot of time with Itja Frans in the rice fields. One day, a man came from the village, obviously distressed. He wanted to speak to Itja: "Please come quickly. My wife is bleeding to death. Can you take us to the Kupang hospital straight away please?"

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